The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to dispute any misrepresentation on your credit reports. Consumer reporting agencies are required to correct or delete inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information within 30 days of dispute.

Our clients usually see results within 45 days, but the credit bureaus have 30 days to process disputes. The repair process can typically take six months to a year, depending on the number of items we need to dispute.

Credit Monitoring is the process of periodically reviewing your credit reports for accuracy. Credit Monitoring helps protect you against identity theft and monitoring any changes and inquiries made to your credit file. Credit Monitoring is a requirement during the process. Please click the link: https://www.smartcredit.com/?PID=96287

The credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, have 30 days to respond to your disputes, plus 15 days for mailing. That means you should get the results of their investigation within about 45 days. Often, negative items remain whose potential inaccuracies were not addressed in one or more credit bureaus’ responses. It can take several rounds of increasingly assertive disputes to get these items corrected or deleted. So the short answer is: It depends! It can take less than one month or several months to achieve a completely accurate credit report to which you are legally entitled. We’ll be with you and advocating for you every step of the way.

35%—both timely and untimely payments. 30%—The amounts and types of outstanding debt. 15%—The time since an account has been active. 10%—Number of recently opened accounts and recent inquiries. 10%—Number and types of reports such as credit cards, retail, etc.

Yes, they can. Negative accounts that were deleted may later reappear if verified by a creditor. According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the credit bureau must inform you before re-reporting a previously deleted listing. The Fair Credit Reporting Act does make it hard to re-report listings; because of this, it is scarce for this to occur. If this situation does ever happen, we will help you challenge the listing within legal means.

Removing anything from your credit reports does not release your obligation to that debt. You still are legally liable for the debt and need to settle it if it is within the statute of limitations in your state. If you feel you are over your head with debt, bankruptcy might be something you should consider; that is the only legal way to remove yourself from debt liability.

In a word, yes, it usually is. If you have inaccurate negative items on your credit reports, that may impact your ability to get a loan or new credit, a house, an apartment, or even a job! And it isn’t only accounts that matter. Lenders and employers may also look at your “aliases” and past addresses for an indication of your trustworthiness. It’s common for credit reports to list the wrong name, birthdate, and address. Worse, they often list misspellings and variations as aka’s or past addresses. A person who’s lived in the same place for 30 years may have a dozen different “addresses” listed! There’s a lot more to credit restoration and credit counseling than disputing apparent mistakes. Call us today to find out more.